Perhaps the president's cancelled convention appearance is good for GOP.

Posted September 1, 2008 3:00 PM

President Bush left the White House this morning for a hurricane-staging area in Texas. Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press

by Mark Silva

Could it be that President Bush's decision to skip the Republican National Convention satisfies everyone -- except, perhaps, the Democrats? Our colleague, Jim Gerstenzang of the L.A. Times, is asking the question at Countdown to Crawford.

"With his job approval rating hovering around a record low, his presence in St. Paul, Minn., during prime time wasn't exactly what was needed to shine a positive light on the Republican presidential ticket,'' Gerstenzang notes.

"Along comes Hurricane Gustav, the convention schedule gets torn up, and instead of heading to the upper Midwest, the president dispatches himself this morning to Texas, to comfort evacuees from the approaching storm.''

The president has found a chance to step out of a political role and present himself instead as "on the job as president of the United States," says Kenneth M. Duberstein, Ronald Reagan's final White House chief of staff, in an interview with Countdown to Crawford.

In addition, Kenneth Khachigian, who wrote the speech that Reagan delivered to the Republican National Convention in 1988 as he turned the political reins over to George H.W. Bush,suggests that the current President Bush really had no choice:

"The potential for disaster would make the president look thoughtless if he came to the convention and addressed the political gathering, instead of showing his concern" for the people in the storm's path.

"It was probably a pretty easy call for him to make. Katrina's on everyone's mind. The choice was made for him. I don't think he had to weigh one thing against the other. Once it got to a certain dimension -- with the governors of the gulf states canceling, and [Vice President Dick] Cheney not coming -- that's probably the right thing to do.

"The president has become the comforter in chief," Khachigian says, and it would have looked inappropriate for him to forgo that role to speak in the political setting.
As for averting a setting in which the coverage would highlight Bush's low standing, Khachigian added: "It sort of relieves him of having to having to deal with one more series of political shots."